


a few living things

by flybbfly



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Alternate Universe - Mob, Assassins & Hitmen, Butcher Neil Josten, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-11
Updated: 2017-10-24
Packaged: 2019-01-16 06:24:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 14,066
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12337260
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flybbfly/pseuds/flybbfly
Summary: what if a mob boss and the assassin sent to kill him fell in love?





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> i posted this on tumblr first and someone asked me to drop it over here, so i am! a few things to note: this isn't really a story with a plot, it's just kinda slice of life. you can read the whole thing on tumblr, but the version posted here will be a little more polished and fleshed out a tiny bit. 
> 
> warnings: mentions of child sex abuse including sex slavery, mentions of sexual assault and rape, lots of gun violence

Mostly, Andrew Minyard slits his marks' throats. One clean slice on the side, a severed carotid artery, blood flow to the brain cut off. A quick death. Not out of mercy, but out of necessity—cutting major veins is too messy, and severing a windpipe is too slow. He isn't in it for the pain or the torture. He's practical. Point A to point B.

So Andrew Minyard goes for the carotid arteries. Mostly.

Neil turns to the next page in the folder. Some of Minyard's earlier victims were strangled to death. A few have been shot, though likely as a last resort—police reports mention signs of a struggle, bullets in the back of the head like they were trying to get away.

Well, “victims” is a subjective term. Implies faultlessness. Innocence. Andrew Minyard's victims are never faultless or innocent. Before the Moriyamas hired him, Andrew Minyard operated like a vicious Robin Hood, or a Batman-for-pay, taking relatively small fees to rid real victims of their abusers.

And now he's after Neil.

“He's shorter than me,” Neil says, looking at the first page of the file again. Shorter than Neil but heavier, a year older, blond hair, no facial expression to speak of. Neil imagines he uses all of that to his advantage. He still looks pretty young, almost harmless. 

“You want us to get rid of him?” Romero asks.

Had a scuffle outside a nightclub when he was a teenager, inpatient treatment at a hospital, bad meds, some rehab. A year of college and what look like pretty good grades before dropping out. The list of names includes bankers, local politicians, and everyday dirtbags. In an alternate universe, Neil might've hired him to kill his own father.

“Everyone he's killed has been middle aged and not expecting it,” Neil says, shuffling through the pages. “I can handle him.”

“He's killed twenty-three people that we know of.” Romero's arms are spread wide like he can't believe Neil would risk his life. _Your father wouldn't be this stupid_ , he's probably thinking. “Are you sure?”

“We aren't going to get the Moriyamas off our backs if we just keep killing their people. I want to talk to him.”

“Let Lola handle it. She's good at getting information out of people.”

“No, I've got it,” Neil says. Lola would probably dismember him, and Neil wants him whole. “Besides. I know this guy.”

*

Neil doesn't really know him, but Kevin does. Neil remembers because between his fear of the Moriyamas and his obsession with a sport he can't play anymore, Kevin is most irritated by the one who got away. Andrew Minyard. The would-be perfect court's would-be perfect goalkeeper. Would've been the best-ever, Kevin always says, glaring at photos of him. Should've said yes. Would've had an amazing life.

Of course, Kevin doesn't recognize that Andrew would've had the same type of life Kevin and Jean had. Kevin doesn't always think things through. 

Neil doesn't, either, but at least he's capable of stringing more than two thoughts together at once. That's how he took over the Butcher's territory after the Moriyamas had his father killed, and that's why he formed an alliance with the Hatfords. 

It was a rough few weeks before that. Between being captured by his father and then tortured by his father, Neil almost begged for death. But then, in an inexplicable act of mercy, the Moriyamas let him live, and Neil seized back control immediately. No honor among thieves and all that. 

Now Neil is running the Butcher's empire without puppet strings attached to his hands and feet. His father's people were always loyal to the Wesninskis first. Maybe he should go by Nathaniel just to make sure they don't forget who he is, but then, the scars on his face serve as a nice reminder. The NW brand on his cheek, a shadow of Kevin's tattoo; the shiny remnants of Lola's carving into his cheek in the backseat of a car; the hot iron stamp on his shoulder, the bullet hole, the angry little circles from the cigarette lighter. 

He hopes they know it was nice of him to let them live. Stupid, maybe, but he wouldn't have been able to wring control away from the Moriyamas on his own, and henchmen are easier to deal with than the most powerful mob boss on the east coast.

How he's survived this long when he's surrounded by people who probably wouldn't mind seeing him dead is beyond him. 

Which is why the Moriyamas sending an assassin wasn't a surprise. Jean wasn't surprised when Neil told him. Even Kevin isn't, and Kevin is sometimes still capable of being surprised by the Moriyamas. 

“He is an assassin,” Kevin says, staring at the picture in the file without touching it. “He could have been the best goalie in exy, and he is an assassin.”

“You could've been the best striker in exy, and you're my accountant,” Neil says. “I don't see the issue.”

Kevin looks like he wants to put a pencil through Neil's eye. Neil smiles. 

“Don't worry,” Neil says. “I'll just get what I need from him and then shoot him. It's not like anyone he's ever killed has had a gun.”

“You're going to do it yourself,” Kevin says. “You have an army of trained killers and you're going to do it yourself.”

“It's not an army. It's ten people who were more loyal to the Butcher than the Moriyamas. That doesn't mean they're going to be loyal to me.” 

“You're going to make an example out of him,” Kevin says.

“Unless you have a better idea.”

“I don't.”

“I knew it,” Neil says. “You're still so upset he turned you down that you wouldn't mind having him killed.”

“This is not an innocent man, Neil,” Kevin says. “He's a killer.” He waves the file in the air. “He's killed twenty-three people that we know of. Why shouldn't he be punished?”

Neil smiles again. Andrew is a killer, but he only kills people who deserve to die. Neil might be in that category. “My thoughts exactly.”

*

Andrew Minyard finally makes his appearance on a Friday night when Neil is in his home gym.

At first, Neil doesn't notice his entrance. The Butcher's people are in and out all the time—to get weapons, to report back to him, to pick up checks. He operates on a bottom-up framework. Everyone gets to talk to him if they want to.

But that doesn't mean he's forgotten who they are. He isn't wearing a shirt because he takes every opportunity to remind his father's people of what his father did to him. What he is capable of surviving. He hasn't gotten his face fixed. He doesn't dye his hair or wear contacts anymore. The more he looks like his father, he figures, the guiltier they'll feel. The more grateful they'll be. 

The other reason he doesn't notice is that Neil isn't as vigilant as he used to be. He is well-protected. There are guns and knives tucked away all over the house, and he is more than proficient at using all of them. 

So he feels safe enough that when Andrew Minyard grabs him from behind it's almost a surprise. 

But only almost: Neil elbows Minyard in the stomach and grabs the nearest gun. He has Minyard at gunpoint before Minyard could've even reasonably gotten a knife out. 

“Hi,” Neil says.

“Are you Nathaniel Wesninski?” Minyard says. He's holding his hands up as if to demonstrate innocence, like he wasn't twenty seconds away from murder a minute ago.

“Shouldn't you know that already?”

“I have a twin,” Minyard says. “I wouldn't want anyone to mistake us for each other.”

“In that case, I actually go by Neil.” 

“Why? Was the 'Nathan' part too big to live up to?”

“No. Nathaniel Wesninski is just too long. Six syllables. It's a mouthful.”

“I'll bet,” Minyard says. It has the cadence of a joke. “So what's your aim here? Are you going to kill me?”

“Probably not,” Neil replies. He shifts his weight, gets more comfortable. “I'm better at the covering up part than the killing part. But something tells me not too many people would come looking for you anyway.” He waits; Minyard does not dispute this. If he cared more about living, maybe he would have. “No, I want to hire you.”

“I am very expensive.” Minyard crosses his arms. “And not for sale.”

“It can't be both, and I know it's actually neither. You've killed rapists for pennies. You aren't the only one who knows how to use the Dark Web, Andrew.”

Andrew blinks like he wasn't expecting Neil to know his name. He looks at Neil, a crease between his brows, gaze traveling up and down Neil's body like he's taking inventory. 

“Come on,” Neil says. “Don't tell me you're loyal to the Moriyamas now when I know you wouldn't even play exy for them six years ago.”

“So it's true,” Andrew says. “Kevin Day is here.” 

He looks around like he's expecting Kevin to come out at any moment, which is definitely possible. Kevin loves hiding out in Neil's guest bedroom. Neil looks around, too, and realizes how stupid it was a moment later when he turns back to Andrew and sees that Andrew now also has a gun out.

Neil grins. “I knew you were good. Come work for me. I'll pay you better and you won't have working for one of the same people you'd have killed before on your conscience.”

“I don't work for Riko.”

“And Ichirou is better?” Neil says. “I doubt it. I know who his mentor was, and I know what his mentor did.” 

Andrew follows the movement of Neil's hand as he gestures first to his scarred chest and then to the NW branded on the side of his face, an echo of the tattoos Jean and Kevin still wear. It could almost be an egotistical moment of masochism if it weren't for the fact that Neil hasn't used those initials in over a decade. 

“What about your mentor?” Andrew says. “Mary Hatford's hands aren't clean.”

“Sure, but at least it isn't my blood on them.” Well. Mostly. 

“Is that your offer?” Andrew leans back a little, readjusts his grip on his gun. “You are going to appeal to my better nature?”

“Of course not,” Neil says. “I'm going to appeal to your wallet. We have no assassins on staff, just beefy beat-him-up types and an accountant. I want you to freelance for me instead of them. You can do your Robin Hood stuff when you aren't picking off Moriyama people.”

“That sounds like a good way for me to get myself killed,” Andrew says. 

“Or I could kill you right now and save you the energy.”

“You shoot, I shoot.”

“I don't think so,” Neil says. “I don't think you're a very good shot, and you've haven't killed someone face to face since you got sober.”

Andrew freezes. If before his face was impassive, now it's nothing at all, less an expression and more just features on a flat canvas. Neil wonders if Andrew is going to shoot him and then considers that provoking the guy sent here to do just that was potentially a mistake, but it's true. Andrew strangled people early on, then was in inpatient care, then rehab, and then started slitting people's throats from behind or else shooting them in the back of the head. Neil doesn't know what changed in the psych ward, but something obviously did.

“Are you trying to hire me or test me?”

“Both,” Neil says, and lowers his gun. “Are you interested?”

Andrew contemplates him. Then he lowers his gun, too. “I'm interested.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> title is from a sufjan song. i think it's john wayne gacy
> 
> come hang out with me on [tumblr](http://wilsherejack.tumblr.com), and please leave a comment if you enjoyed or spotted a typo!


	2. Chapter 2

Andrew always has a gun on him, but it's not the weapon he favors. Instead he palms his knives, keeps them constantly at the ready. Neil always sort of wonders if Andrew sleeps with knives strapped to his wrists. 

Maybe he's staring, because Andrew tilts his head at Neil like a confused cat. “Losing your nerve?”

“What, like you?” Neil says, and cocks his gun.

“Whatever you are thinking, you are mistaken,” Andrew says, stepping past Neil down the hallway. “I never lose my nerve.”

“Then why am I still alive?”

Andrew doesn't spare Neil even a passing glance. “Because you are interesting.”

“Okay, then why do you always slit your vics' throats?”

“If you slit someone's throat before they know you are in the room, then they can't make noise.”

Neil walks backward so that he can look down the hall for any sudden threats. At his back, Andrew is almost silent. “Doesn't explain why you've only ever shot people in the back.”

“Guns are a last resort, and I'm a bad shot.”

Neil huffs out something like a laugh. “Doesn't seem very noble.”

“They are going to die either way. What does it matter if they look me in the eye while I do it?”

“I don't know,” Neil says. “I'd want to look someone in their eyes before they killed me.”

“I'll keep that in mind.” Andrew has stopped moving; Neil only finds out when he bumps into him. “We're here.” 

Neil steps back and half-turns to watch Andrew stand up on his tip toes to look through the peephole of apartment #5J. Loud music pumps through the door, enough that it almost surprises Neil when Andrew says, “Four of them in the living room. Only two of us, and one of us is a liability.” 

“Stop pretending you work better alone,” Neil says. “If you get killed on a job because you were reckless and didn't trust me—” He lets the sentence trail off even though Andrew looks expectant. “Besides, Jean says they're drunks.”

“Oh, Jean says it,” Andrew says. Neil can hear the eyeroll in his voice, but Jean's intel is always accurate. 

“No one said you had to use my resources for your little side gig,” Neil says. “Besides, Jean is good at what he does.”

Andrew doesn't answer Neil. Instead, he pulls out his lock picks, and Neil forces himself to pay attention to anything but Andrew's hands.

*

It goes well. Neil distracts the drunks with guns and talk, and Andrew sneaks in behind him to slit the men's throats. They're so drunk that it isn't until the second one falls off his chair that the third and fourth think to pay attention to the blood.

“Not bad,” Neil says, sliding into the passenger seat of Andrew's car. “Don't you think this is kind of conspicuous for a getaway vehicle, though?”

Andrew doesn't look at him.

“I told you it'd be faster if there were two of us,” Neil adds. 

“You were just bored,” Andrew says. “You thought being the Butcher would be all glamor and murder, and instead it's managing the books.”

Neil waves a hand in the air. “Kevin does that, and I get to Batman around with you.”

“Once,” Andrew says. “Because it was an entire ring of human traffickers, and I am only one person.”

“You needed my help,” Neil says. “Admit it.”

“I don't need anyone,” Andrew says, which is predictable enough that Neil smiles into the darkness outside the car. 

“Whatever,” Neil says. “You had your fun. Eyes back on the prize.”

“Killing Ichirou so you can finally leave your life of crime behind?” Andrew guesses. 

“Killing Ichirou so I can retire to a nice island with all my father's money and not have to worry about them coming after my people.”

“Your people,” Andrew says dryly. “Lola and Romero. Those people?”

“My people,” Neil repeats. It's a sore spot these days, Neil's reliance on the same people who nearly killed him. “They always had my father's back, and now they have mine.”

“For as long as it takes for them to figure out how to murder you, maybe.”

The argument is old, and Neil is too tired for it. “Unlike you, who conspire to murder me to my face.”

Andrew flicks a glance toward Neil, but he doesn't say anything, just keeps driving. 

Andrew is probably right. He is more often than he isn't, these days. There is a target on Neil's back, and Andrew knew it from the start. 

Neil's days might not be numbered, but they are limited. He can't keep escaping death by the tips of his fingers—sooner or later, someone's going to grab hold, and then he'll have no one to blame but himself. 

But he knows all that. He's known it for years. So he ignores it, the reality of his death, the fact that it will probably come at the hands of his own people, and leans back in his seat. 

It doesn't matter, he tells himself. His life will be forgotten. The only people who bother with him only do so because he pays them. He doesn't really trust anyone, and the person he comes closest to trusting he's known for less than a year. If he dies, he dies. Until then, he needs to find a way to survive. 

The rest of the drive back to Baltimore is silent.

*

When they get to Neil's house, there is the immediate sense that something is wrong.

For one, all the lights are off. Neil never turns all the lights off. It was an old neurosis of his mother's—keep a light on to dissuade potential breakers-in. You only turn the lights off to give the impression of an empty house. 

For another, when Neil tries the door, he finds it unlocked.

Andrew grabs Neil's wrist, pries his hand away from the knob, and holds a finger to his lips to signal for silence. Neil pulls out his gun and cocks it, then follows Andrew into the house.

It takes a moment for Neil's eyes to adjust to the darkness, but soon enough, it becomes clear that the house has been ransacked. Tables are turned over, couches ripped open, and that's only in the front room, which is empty. 

They walk back to back through the house, guns at the ready—if someone shows up, there will be no time for one of Andrew's knives. They find each room empty and borderline destroyed.

“What were they looking for?” Andrew whispers.

“I don't know.”

“How can you not know?”

“It'd help if I knew who they were,” Neil hisses.

“Obviously it was your father's people,” Andrew says. “Who else knew you weren't going to be here this weekend?”

“Kevin,” Neil says doubtfully, and then there's a creak.

“Upstairs,” Andrew says. “Which stairs make a sound?”

“Just follow me and skip the ones I skip.”

“They will kill you if they see you first.”

“You're not my bodyguard,” Neil wants to say, but instead he says, “No, they won't. They like to make it hurt.”

Andrew stares at him. Neil hates when Andrew looks at him like that—like they're the same, maybe, or like he can understand. Neil doesn't want Andrew to be the same, and he doesn't want anyone to understand. He scratches at a scarred knuckle self-consciously and takes a breath.

Then he starts to creep up the stairs, skipping the fourth and ninth. He considers why it is he has the stairs that creak memorized and decides never to tell Andrew. Then again, Andrew probably knows.

The upstairs hallway is empty, but the creak came from around one of the guest bedrooms.

Neil is in front of him, but Andrew pushes past to press his ear against the door. He makes brief eye contact with Neil, nods, and then kicks the door in.

The sudden light shocks both of them. It takes Neil a moment to figure out what it is—a phone flashlight—and then to make out the shadowy figures behind it.

Lola and Romero. Andrew is going to be insufferable after this. 

“Junior!” Lola says, shooting Neil exactly the manic smile that he sees in his nightmares. Andrew knows about those, too. “We've missed you.” 

“Drop your phone,” Neil says. “Hands in the air.”

He clicks on the light, points his gun at Romero, trusts that Andrew has his aimed at Lola.

“What do you want?” Neil says, even though it's obvious that they're trying to steal his business out from under him. They've taken the drawers out of the dresser, slashed the mattress. They're looking for vendor lists, contacts, suppliers. 

Kevin has most of them, and anyway everything is digital and Jean is a genius when it comes to internet security. Neil would be worried, except that if they'd gotten to Kevin they wouldn't be here. Kevin isn't likely to stand up to torture.

“We just think we're owed a stake in this little operation,” Lola says. “We helped your dad build it up, and we should be more than just your lackeys.”

Neil rolls his eyes. “This business isn't incorporated, Lola, you can't buy stock in it.” 

Next to him, Andrew shifts. Neil can't tell if he thought that was funny or if he's raring for a fight.

“We don't want stock,” Romero says. He looks a little deer in headlights, Neil thinks; neither of them was expecting Neil to return tonight, much less for him to return with Andrew. They thought he was out doing business, not helping Andrew kill someone. They're not prepared for this. Their guns aren't in their hands. It gives Neil an ugly sense of satisfaction—he is going to murder both of these people in cold blood, and they won't be able to defend themselves. Just like he wasn't. “We want to run this thing.”

“How are you going to do that if I'm still here?” Neil says, tilting his head to the side. He feels like a bull being taunted by two matadors who forgot he still has horns: hungry, a little unhinged. Violent. 

“Just because Ichirou's scared of you, doesn't mean we all are,” Lola says, and then there's a knife in her hand. She was always good with them. Taught Neil, actually. He wonders who taught Andrew.

“Hilarious,” Andrew says, though there isn't a single note of it in his voice. “She brought a knife to a gun fight.”

Andrew can't shoot, though, so maybe Lola still has the advantage. 

Except that as soon as she opens her mouth to say something else, he fires a few times in her direction, and eventually one of the bullets hits her, and she falls.

“Close proximity,” Neil tells him. “No way you'd miss all of them.”

Andrew doesn't say anything.

“Nathaniel,” Romero says, dropping a little so his knees are resting on the bed, hands still above his head. Interesting. Neil would've bet that he'd make a move toward his sister's corpse. “I'm your guy, you know I'm your guy—”

“Who else was in on this?” Neil says. He ignores how much the voice coming out of his mouth sounds like his father's. He smiles. 

“No one, it was just us, it—”

“If you want to survive for another fucking minute, you'll tell me.”

“No one,” Romero says again. “We were going to take over, then get in touch with the rest. Everyone else was too squeamish, they didn't like it—”

“But you're used to hurting me,” Neil says. He has never been a merciful person. He only didn't kill these two the second he could because he needed a staff, but he has one now, and most of them can almost be trusted. He pays them well enough. “It wouldn't have been anything new.”

“It was just us,” Romero says. “It was Lola's idea, I just went with it.”

“What do you think?” Neil says. 

He isn't looking at Andrew, but Andrew knows he's being addressed. 

“I think he is telling the truth.”

“Great,” Neil says. “Hopefully everyone else stays squeamish.” 

He shoots Romero in the head. Unlike Andrew, Neil is not a bad shot.

*

Clean up takes less time than it should. Neil always thinks that. It seems like it should take longer to erase the traces of a life.

But then, these weren't exactly paragons of virtue and good faith. They're criminals with no families. The police expect them to end up in Chesapeake Bay eventually. 

Not to mention: the person helping Neil clean up has successfully assassinated around fifty people and covered his tracks perfectly almost every time. Neil's people found twenty-three of Andrew's victims when Andrew started working for the Moriyamas. Andrew told Neil about another ten, and in the months since he's started working for Neil, has gotten through another seventeen.

Well. Another twenty-three, now. Neil does like symmetry, though he supposes Romero should be on his own ledger, not Andrew's.

“We killed six people tonight,” Neil says.

They're on the balcony outside the master bedroom that Neil doesn't use, Andrew carrying a bottle of whiskey, Neil two glasses. 

Andrew opens the bottle. “I can make it one more,” he says, gaze flicking up to meet Neil's. 

“Not tonight,” Neil says. “You're in too good a mood. You get to say 'I told you so' for the next few hours.” 

“Don't tell me you feel remorse.”

“Remorse is last thing I feel,” Neil says, which is true. Romero and Lola would have killed him. The four drunks from earlier tonight were celebrating their success running a child sex ring. “They didn't deserve to live.”

“And we do?” Andrew says. He lights a cigarette and passes the pack to Neil, who fiddles with the edge of lid before answering.

“Does it matter?” Neil says. “We're alive.”

Andrew doesn't roll his eyes, but Neil thinks he almost does. “I really am going to kill you,” he says.

Neil makes eye contact. “Kiss me instead.”

It catches Andrew by surprise. Andrew's expression doesn't change, really, but there's a hitch in his breath, a split second, and Neil grins. He loves surprising Andrew, especially since it happens so rarely.

“This is a stupid idea,” Andrew says.

“We've already established that I'm stupid,” Neil says. “Still figured you out, though.”

“You haven't figured anything out,” Andrew says, but he leans in anyway.

He tastes like whiskey. Funny, Neil didn't even notice him take a sip. He tastes like whiskey and cigarettes. If you added blood, it'd be everything he associates with Andrew.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm on tumblr [here](http://wilsherejack.tumblr.com).
> 
> Please leave a comment if you enjoyed or spotted a typo!


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "wow fly, sure is weird that it took you so long to post something that you'd already written and posted somewhere else"
> 
> listen. there are two possibilities: a) i have adhd and i forgot i was posting this OR b) i wrote an entire middle chapter that was going to be ALL NEW CONTENT but then my computer crashed & restarted and i've somehow not learned from a lifetime of using computers (or maybe i've just started trusting them too much) that i'm supposed to be saving my progress every 2 seconds and all 5000 words of it was deleted. rather than rewrite it (i was very upset) i just tried to cobble together one of my favorite scenes from it and incorporate it here. i still feel like the original was better.
> 
> one or more of those possibilities may be true.

Andrew Minyard never met the original Butcher of Baltimore, but if he was anything like his son, Andrew understands the fanatical devotion.

Neil doesn’t elicit the same kind of loyalty, mostly: the only people devoted to him are Jean and Kevin. Andrew, too, if you’re counting people who are paid to be.

Andrew gets it, though. Neil is all poorly concealed confidence, simultaneously raring for a fight and backing away from a punch, shirtless whenever he can be just to remind his father’s people of who he is. It’s the same reason he’s never gotten rid of that brand on his face. He could afford to; he pays Andrew more than enough.

Neil is sitting across the room now. He’s not very good at sitting still: he always looks like he’s either on the start line of a marathon or about to throw a punch. Even when he’s negotiating through some unsavory business or other, he doesn’t look like he’s all the way there.

“What?” Neil says.

Andrew doesn’t respond. He looks back down at his computer, poring over his email.

“Someone in Wilmington wants to hire me,” Andrew tells Neil. “A quick job. Should only take me an hour or two.”

“Is it a Robin Hood one, or are you trying to negotiate a raise? Because you know Kevin handles all of that, and he says I can't—”

“Don’t worry,” Andrew says, responding to the post. “I don’t need more money.”

“Oh,” Neil says. Andrew avoids looking up, but he can picture Neil's face, chin jutting up a little like it does when he thinks something is funny. “Good. When?”

They say Andrew’s mark will be alone in his house all weekend. Andrew needs to stock up on ammo and sharpen his knives, but otherwise, he’s ready to go.

“I need to borrow your car,” Andrew says.

Neil’s car is a blue 2015 Honda Accord. There are probably a million more just like it in Delaware. Andrew’s probably cost at least five times as much and sticks out like a sore thumb everywhere. It’d be faster, but it might draw unwanted attention. 

“You have fake plates?”

Andrew nods. He has a few fake licenses, too. It’s good to be prepared.

“I’ll go Saturday after I take King to the vet.”

“I can take her,” Neil says. “Earlier you get to Delaware, earlier you get back, right? Unless you want me to come?”

Neil really is irritating. Smug, too.

“As I’ve repeatedly told you, I want nothing.”

“Right,” Neil says. Andrew makes the mistake of looking up at him. He’s smiling. Andrew can’t stand him. “Of course. Let me know if you change your mind.”

It’s one person. Andrew can handle it.

*

“And how are you sleeping?” Betsy asks.

Andrew watches the clock over her shoulder. The resolution on the screen isn't good enough for him to make out the second hand, but he imagines it anyway, moving from the two to the three. Tick, tick, tick, tick.

“Andrew.”

Tick.

“Poorly,” Andrew says.

Betsy shifts in her chair a little. “Do you have any idea why?”

“No.”

“It isn't because of the job you can't tell me about?”

“It is not more stressful than usual,” Andrew says, which is mostly true. If anything, having a steady paycheck from Neil should make freelancing less anxiety-inducing. But when he opens a message board, there is such a wide array of people being abused that the idea of only being able to kill one abuser every few days is suffocating.

He's always had an addictive personality. First to fighting, then to his own prescription, now to this. Saving people, Neil calls it. It's not accurate. No one killed Drake for Andrew when he was twelve, but it's not like Andrew is dead. Someone could've burned every one of his abusers alive and he still wouldn't have been saved. So _he_ is not saving people, either.

Still. Every time he thinks he has seen the worst in humanity, humanity surprises him. 

“That doesn't answer my question,” Betsy says.

“I wish I could do more.”

“You want to work harder?”

“I want there to be more hours in the day,” Andrew says, but that's not quite right. More hours for him means more hours for everyone else, too. It's more like—he wants to be able to stop time and work his way through every job that has fallen into his inbox, then use the proceeds to buy Neil a better wardrobe. He knows it's naive to want people to be better, but he still does. He doesn't know when he got soft. Probably when Neil dragged him to an animal shelter and asked him if he had any experience taking care of cats.

“You rarely admit to wanting anything,” Betsy says.

“Wanting is pointless if you can't do anything about it.” Wanting anything at all is naive. He prefers to just do. Do and take. Passivity never got anyone anywhere.

“Let's look at the other part of your life that has been through a change recently, then. Is the issue with your relationship with Neil?”

“It's not a relationship,” Andrew snaps, but he doesn't know what else to call it. “Fucking” isn't quite descriptive enough, and “sleeping together” lacks precision. 

“But he is technically your boss.”

“It doesn't matter. There is a middle man who manages my payment and most of my job.” Kevin would bristle at the wording, but if there's anything Andrew enjoys, it's annoying Kevin. 

“But you've implied that your job is dangerous,” Betsy says. “Maybe the issue isn't that Neil is your boss. Maybe it's that he is in the same industry as you.”

“He was born into it,” Andrew says. “It's his life.”

“That doesn't preclude you from being—” She pauses. Andrew imagines the ticking of the clock behind her, gets to three before she finishes, “Solicitous. You two have a connection.”

“I'm not solicitous.” 

What is he supposed to say? That he's supposed to be working on taking down Ichirou with Neil but neither of them knows where to start and they keep getting distracted? That Ichirou has been suspiciously quiet in the year since Andrew defected? That the only way Andrew can fall asleep these days is with a hand wrapped around Neil's wrist, matching his breaths to the beat of Neil's pulse?

“Andrew,” Betsy says. He's known her for long enough to know when he's being called out for being difficult. “I hope you didn't schedule a Skype session without intending to be honest.”

“I am always honest.”

“Usually, yes.” She pauses, and when he doesn't go on, says, “I enjoyed the maple hot chocolate you sent me. How was Montreal?”

“Cold,” Andrew says.

“Did Neil like it?”

“He wouldn't like you,” Andrew says, which really is him being difficult. 

Betsy shifts in her chair again, rests her chin on her hand. “Do you think it'd be beneficial for him to talk to me?”

He knows what she's trying to do—find out what's wrong with him by hearing his explanation about whatever's wrong with Neil. It won't work. Neil doesn't like being talked about, and anyway it's irrelevant. 

“Ask him yourself,” he replies.

“Andrew.” It's the you're-being-difficult tone again, but this time she follows it up. “You have been working with Neil for over a year. You have been living with him for six months.” He moved in not long after they killed Lola and Romero—he was at Neil's so often anyway that it stopped making sense to pay for his tiny apartment across town. He has his own room at Neil's house, and it might be bigger than his entire old apartment. The Butcher's blood money, Neil calls it. “It'd be natural for you to have concern for him even if he were just any other roommate.”

Behind her, the clock ticks. It was always so loud during their sessions in her office, filling the silence as he tried to answer a difficult question or just ignored one. 

Outside his room, he can hear someone coming up the stairs. It's probably Neil. He won't come into Andrew's room without explicit permission, but Neil coming home means his session is almost over anyway.

Betsy must notice his distraction, because she looks down at her notepad. “Are you ready for your assignment for next week?”

Andrew nods.

“Good,” Betsy says. “Andrew.”

He waits. 

“Try to get some sleep. Give the breathing and mindfulness an honest attempt. Let's link back up next week for an update on the situation, and …”

Her voice drones on, but Andrew has stopped listening. Neil is upstairs, walking past this room, humming something to the cats in that way he has. 

“Next week,” Andrew agrees, and closes his laptop.

*

Andrew hits the road early on Saturday morning. His one dollar payment is in his bank account already—a formality really, a way to make the deal work in his head. He’s not a superhero or a vigilante. He’s a paid professional.

Wilmington is an hour and a half from Neil’s house in the suburbs of Baltimore. Neil is in the process of packing everything up and moving to Baltimore proper. The cover story is that he wants to be closer to the businesses he funds. The reality is that he’s finally decided he doesn’t need to live in his father’s house to run his father’s business. Personally, Andrew can get behind that sentiment. He doesn’t care if Neil flinches every time he looks at a certain corner of the kitchen, but it makes Neil look weak to his people, so it’s in the best interest of his business for Neil to move.

It’ll be more convenient for Andrew, too. Baltimore is an easy city to blend into with one of the most notoriously corrupt police forces in the country. Neil can buy them out, and Andrew can use them to help legitimize his little side gig.

He glances in the rearview. There is minimal traffic on the I-95 getting out of Baltimore for once, but the same car has been behind him since he got onto the highway.

It’s probably nothing. He presses the gas. Neil’s car isn’t as shiny as Andrew’s, but Andrew’s had it tricked out—it goes faster than a Honda Accord probably should, and it drives smoother, too. It’s nice working for someone with an accountant who okays so much discretionary spending.

The car behind him is still there half an hour later. It’s obscured by other cars now, but Andrew still sees it, its gleaming windshield glaring at Andrew from the middle lane like a beacon. He stays to the left as long as he can, pushes the car as fast as it’ll go without getting himself pulled over—that’s all he needs, really, getting pulled over with fake plates and a fake license—and the car fades out of his line of vision by the time he’s crossed into Delaware.

Wilmington is quiet for a city. Compared to Baltimore, it’s practically a suburb. It has more violent crime than anywhere else in Delaware, though, a statistic Andrew intends to add to. He remembers those videos they showed when he was waiting to meet new foster parents—“I don’t want to be a statistic,” some ambiguously ethnic kid playing baseball instead of smoking weed, a cheerful white wannabe parent. Andrew doesn’t mind being a statistic. Not this kind, anyway.

He pulls in at the house he’s supposed to be at, and knows immediately that something is wrong. For one thing, it’s the last house on a dead end road. For another, there are two cars parked in the driveway. And one of them is the car that was tailing him on the highway.

He doesn’t know how this car beat him here. Maybe they were using a better GPS than he was.

There are two options. He can pop a u-ey and get out of here, or he can pull into the driveway and find out what’s waiting for him in that house.

Andrew is curious, but he isn’t reckless. He can send the dollar back when he gets home. He shifts Neil’s car into reverse and starts to back up, but his arm barely makes it across the back of the passenger seat before he hears a gunshot.

Fuck. He fumbles for his bag, digs out his own gun, and looks around in the direction the shot came from. He sees nothing, so he presses the gas again, but then—another bullet, passing right over the boot of the car.

Fuck. He’s stuck here unless he wants to risk getting shot at and having to drive home with a potentially mortal wound and bullet holes in Neil’s car.

He leans back in his seat and considers the facts. Obviously, this was a trap. If whoever set it wanted Andrew dead, he’d probably be dead. He can’t even tell where the gunshots are coming from.

No, they just want him to stay here. They probably think he’s going to come out of the car with his hands above his head. Well, fuck them.

He settles in the front seat, rolls down the window, undoes the seatbelt, and lights a cigarette. If he’s going to be waiting for these idiots, he might as well be getting something out of it.

He’s finished the cigarette before they realize he intends to wait them out. Two people come out of the house Andrew’s mark is supposed to be in, march up to his car, and open the driver side door. Rude.

“Andrew Minyard?” one of them says, waving a gun in Andrew’s face. “Get out.”

“Who are you?” Andrew says, but it’s pointless; neither of them seems interested in making conversation.

“Leave your weapons here,” the talker orders.

Andrew drops his gun on his seat, then makes a show of taking one of his knives out of the sheath strapped around his ankle.

“My colleague is going to pat you down for more,” the talker says.

Andrew stiffens, but he lets it happen. It’s not worth getting shot over, even if all signs point to it not being a fatal one.

The colleague doesn’t find any. Andrew supposes it’s lucky they got to him before he fully armed himself: they don’t think to check his armbands, but they might have if they’d found the switchblade he usually keeps at his waist and the knife he straps to his back.

“Put your hands up. Move.”

The patter-down pushes a gun between Andrew’s shoulder blades. Andrew hopes to god he’s practicing good trigger discipline and moves in the direction he’s nudged.

They go in the front door. The house is nothing special; it could be an Airbnb, or maybe one of these people really does own a house in Wilmington, Delaware for no good reason. Andrew gets shoved onto a couch. The goons sit, one on either side of him, and wait.

Eventually, more goons come in. This time, they flank none other than Ichirou Moriyama.

Well, Andrew supposes he was going to have to face up to this eventually.

“Stand up,” the talker hisses in Andrew’s ear. Andrew complies. None of them sit back down until Ichirou positions himself on the couch opposite.

“It’s taking you much longer than expected to take out Nathaniel Wesninski,” Ichirou says. “Originally, you told me it could be done in one week. It’s been fifteen months, and his business thrives while my men keep disappearing.”

Outside, birds caw. Crows, maybe, or ravens. It’s starting to rain. Andrew was planning on using the sound of the rain to disguise his footsteps in this house. He’s done it before. People always ignore their fears until the exact moment he has a hand around their throats, at which point it’s too late.

“Rumor has it you’ve grown close to Nathaniel,” Ichirou continues. “I understand that. His father was a compelling man, too. His employees were extremely loyal. Perhaps that is why so many of them have gone missing in the last year.”

There’s lightning, and chasing behind it, thunder. Andrew likes these late summer, early fall storms; they didn’t really have them when he was growing up in SoCal, but they make up the fabric of east coast Septembers.

“Nathan had his own team, but he worked for me. Nathaniel seems to be poaching people who belong to me without sending me their finders’ fees.”

He’s probably talking about Kevin and Jean, both of whom had no hope of continuing their exy careers thanks to this man’s younger brother. Andrew barely listens; one of the corners of the living room ceiling has peeling paint. He wonders if it’s lead. He doesn't know how old you have to be for lead paint to stop affecting you.

“If he’d only sent me my cut, I would have been happy to grant him some autonomy,” Ichirou says. “After all, I am a generous man. Ask anyone.”

It really was stupid of Andrew to come here without better investigating the source of the post. He’s gotten complacent in the past year. Having an occasional partner does that to you. You forget to watch your back because someone else is doing it for you.

“But instead, he is having you and his other men pick off any of my people in Baltimore.” Ichirou pauses like he wants a reaction. “As if it were his territory. The audacity, honestly—Andrew, are you listening?”

Andrew’s eyes snap back to Ichirou.

“Yes,” he says.

“Good,” Ichirou says. “Because I am about to offer you a deal.”

“A deal.”

“Yes. I could just have you killed for not killing Nathaniel the first time, but I think you have the potential to be valuable, and I don’t like to waste valuable people.” Ichirou leans forward a little. “Nathaniel trusts you. You go with him everywhere. You drove his car here. Nathaniel does not trust easily, and he does not let many people get close to him.”

It’s a misreading of the situation. Correlation mistaken for causation. No one who knows what’s good for them wants to get too close to Neil. He has the bright markings of a dangerous animal.

“I want to know everything,” Ichirou says. “I want his books. I want his client lists. I want his grocery lists. Do you understand?”

Andrew nods.

“Good,” Ichirou says. “This is your last chance. Disregard my orders again and you will die.”

Andrew stands up to leave, but Ichirou isn’t done.

“I am prepared to sweeten the deal. I know what types of people the Butcher surrounds himself with, and they would not consider their lives adequate payment for betraying their master. When the task is complete, I will pay you enough to take you out of the game for good.” He raises an eyebrow at Andrew. “Get out.”

*

Andrew waits until he gets onto the highway to check his pulse. There it is, same as always, steady. Calm. Even death threats from the biggest mob boss on the east coast can’t faze him. If he had the capacity to be annoyed, he’d be annoyed.

But—he thinks, the type of self-betrayal he’s known for if only to himself—he does have the capacity to be annoyed. He digs his phone out of the glove compartment with one hand, keeping a mostly dispassionate eye on the road.

“Hey Siri,” Andrew says. His voice sounds flat and unaffected instead of how a normal person’s might sound—terrified, moments away from a panic attack. If he were Neil, he’d be looking up the fastest route to Vancouver and disposing of his phone in the nearest toilet. “Call Neil.”

Neil answers after half a ring.

“How did it go?” he says in lieu of hello. “Everything nice and smooth on your side of things?”

“Yes,” Andrew says. “How is King?”

“She’s fine,” Neil says. “Got all her shots. The assistant at the front gave me his card and told me to call if I have any issues, but the vet said King should be good until next year. I made an appointment for Sir, too, he’ll need to get his vaccines in six months, so don’t schedule any hits for the first Saturday in March, ha ha—Andrew?”

“Mm,” Andrew says. The car in front of him is driving too slowly. He rests his hand on the wheel to honk, and then—doesn’t.

“Are you good?” Neil says.

He thinks he can read Andrew, even a hundred miles away over the phone. Andrew hates him.

“Yes,” Andrew says.

“Okay,” Neil says. “What do you want for dinner?”

It’s such a casual question that Andrew almost laughs. Dinner.

“You choose,” Andrew says, even though Neil has terrible taste. Maybe he feels guilty. “I’ll be home in an hour.”

*

“There you are,” Neil says when Andrew meets him in the master bedroom.

Neil uses it as a guest room, which means its only practical purpose is the balcony Andrew smokes off. Only Kevin ever sleeps here. Sir trails after Andrew, batting at his ankles, while King sits curled in Neil’s lap.

“She’s sleeping,” Neil says when he catches Andrew looking. “She had a long day at the vet. Speaking of which.”

Andrew knew Neil would jump right in. He sits down in his own chair, shakes a cigarette out of his pack, and lights it. Sir, who hates cigarette smoke, scratches Andrew’s ankle in disgust and scampers over to Neil.

“It was a set-up,” Andrew says, which makes Neil sit straight up. Andrew hates him. “Don’t wake King up.”

“Who was it?” Neil asks. His hand twitches above the scruff of King’s neck before dropping back down to resume petting. “Butcher people?”

“No. It was Ichirou.”

Neil goes tense again. “What?”

Andrew explains. Neil runs a hand through his hair several times. It’s getting too long, Andrew notes; he’s going to stop looking respectable and vaguely threatening and start just looking like a teenager with absent parents again soon.

“Call Ichirou,” Neil says. “Tell him everything about me. We can send him all my records, you take the money, and then I’ll run and you can meet me in a few weeks —”

“They will find you again,” Andrew interrupts. “You are not as good at hiding as you think you are.”

Neil glares out into the middle distance. “So—what? We can’t just wait for Ichirou to show up and—and repo you.”

“I will figure it out,” Andrew says.

“This is my problem,” Neil replies. “I’ll solve it.”

“You pay me to solve this kind of problem.”

“You can’t kill Ichirou Moriyama. He’s too well-protected, he’d leave too big of a vacuum. It’s not—” Neil stops. Andrew knows what Neil is thinking. He’ll wait until Andrew is not paying attention, and then he’ll sneak off to negotiate with Ichirou himself. Neil is not nearly as slick as he thinks he is.

“I will figure it out,” Andrew says again.

Neil doesn’t look convinced.

*

Technically, Andrew has his own room in Neil’s house, but he hasn’t slept in it very often in the last few months. He doubles down on this vigilance now: he only falls asleep when Neil is already in bed, a hand wrapped around Neil's wrist possessively. He blinks himself awake in the middle of the night most of the time just to make sure Neil hasn’t run off to West Virginia or wherever the Moriyamas are based. In the mornings, he wakes up before Neil does. He double checks the lock on the front door, makes sure he’s on guard at night. He is a light enough sleeper that any movement from Neil should wake him up, except that he doesn’t have a test case for that because Neil hardly ever moves at night.

Which is, in the end, his undoing. Neil catches him off guard by disappearing one morning two weeks later.

Logically, Andrew knows that the last thing Neil would do is sacrifice his own life. Neil is not that kind of martyr. Neil will sacrifice happiness, but not his life. Neil is not stupid.

Then again, maybe it’s not logic. Maybe he is trying to rationalize.

He searches their house for possible hints. Neil’s laptop is out, but his recent searches are just for cat food and exy videos. There is food in the cats’ bowls, which means Neil didn’t leave by force, and there is coffee in the pot.

And, Andrew discovers when he opens the refrigerator for his cream, a note left for him.

Why Neil left the post-it note on the carton of cream, Andrew doesn’t understand. Maybe he knew Andrew would get coffee before anything else.

_andrew—in WV. phone tracker is on. don’t follow unless not back before dinner. don’t worry, i’m fine. really._

Dinner? West Virginia is a six hour drive away. Unless he fucking flew, which Neil probably would do if he didn’t trust Andrew not to follow him.

The thing is, if Andrew leaves by car now and Neil really did fly, Andrew won’t get there until Neil is already on his way back. He can’t fly out because—he checks his phone—there are no nonstop flights into West Virginia until tomorrow. All he can do is fucking wait. 

Andrew presses his fingers to the side of his neck. His heart beats a staccato. He hates Neil. He hates Neil. He hates Neil, he hates Neil, he hates Neil, he hates Neil.

He wants to break something. He definitely needs to do something. Part of that is probably trusting Neil.

He calls Kevin.

“He did what?” Kevin's incredulity only barely masks the slight tremor in his voice. “Are you serious? Is he fucking stupid?”

“Yes,” Andrew says. “What will happen?”

“If Lord Ichirou is like his brother, he will probably be lucky to escape with all his fingers.”

“He said he’d be back by dinner.”

“Oh,” Kevin says. Some of the panic goes out of his voice. “Well, he’s not exactly known for lying. I mean, not to you, anyway. If he says he thinks he’ll be back, he probably thinks he’ll be back.”

“Ichirou wants him dead.”

“Yeah, Ichirou probably wants a lot of people dead. Doesn’t mean he kills them. Neil just has to make staying alive a sweeter deal than being dead, right?”

The thought occurred to Andrew on his way back to Baltimore, but he didn’t entertain it for long. After all, what can Neil give Ichirou that Ichirou wouldn’t get more of by just having Neil killed?

“I’m supposed to meet him today to help organize all his paperwork for the big move,” Kevin says. “Do you think that’s canceled? He’s such a flake.”

A flake. Neil is probably out there being tortured, and Kevin is asking about their plans.

“If you are wrong, I will kill you,” Andrew says, and hangs up.

Neil wants him to wait. Neil orchestrated all of this to make him wait.

Neil says he’ll be back by dinner. Neil is not cruel enough to say that and then disappear for good.

Then again, maybe he is. Andrew has only known him for a year. Well, more than that. Fifteen months, Ichirou said. Still: Neil seems transparent until he doesn’t, honest by accident but deliberately, carefully opaque. He might be cruel and hiding it.

No. Even if he is secretly cruel, Neil is not suicidal. The only possibilities are that he genuinely thinks he will be back tonight or that he’s run off somewhere and will let Andrew know when he can. Neil is frustrating and annoying and occasionally indecipherable, but there is certainty in his—his affection for Andrew. Even if Andrew doesn’t like to think about it or put words to it. Even if it feels impermanent, threatens to slip out from between his fingers at any moment like mercury. It’s certain. Neil wouldn’t lie about this.

Andrew packs. 

They’re supposed to be moving into their new space in Baltimore at the end of the month. He doesn’t think about what he’ll do if Neil doesn’t come back, or if he comes back maimed. He doesn’t think about the roomy three bedroom in Baltimore with its rickety fire escape and exposed brick and brand new kitchen appliances and how empty it would feel with only one person, even if that one person also had two cats. He doesn’t make contingency plans—Jean would take Sir and King if Andrew had to leave on short notice; he’s the only person the cats like other than Neil and Andrew. Kevin always gets scratched when he’s here—and he doesn’t consider the possibility of a future other than the one he has planned out.

He and Neil will move out in four days. Their new bed is set to arrive the same day they do. They will set it up. They will introduce the cats to the new space. They will spend their first week in Baltimore on vacation, making the space their own. Then Neil will inform his connections of the move. Then Andrew will get on with his life separate from Neil (he has three jobs lined up for after the move. It takes all his willpower not to cancel all of them). Neil will conduct his business from the actual city and presumably have more success while doing so. Andrew will continue to conduct his business in the shadows.

He puts layers of tissue between their flatware. He puts all their silverware in a box. When the sun starts to set, he orders enough takeout to feed ten people. By the time it arrives, he feels like he’ll never be hungry again.

_Don’t follow unless not back before dinner._

Well, it’s dinner.

Andrew’s weapons are in a case under his rarely used bed. He digs it out, loads two guns, sharpens some knives, and lays everything out on the kitchen island next to the takeout boxes. He wonders how many people he’s going to have to kill tonight. He wonders if he and Neil will be able to come back to this place or if it’ll be taken over by Moriyama people as soon as Andrew murders their leader. He should drop the cats off at Jean’s just in case.

The lock clicks. The knob turns. The door opens.

“Jesus,” Neil says, looking appropriately startled at the gun Andrew is pointing at him. “It’s just me.”

It’s just him. Andrew has to pry his own fingers off the gun.

“You probably would’ve missed anyway at this range,” Neil says.

He loves joking about how bad Andrew is with a gun, but Andrew isn’t as bad anymore. He’s been practicing. Sometimes he can even focus for long enough to aim.

Sir trots over to Neil, and Neil bends to pick him up. Sir is like some combination of a dog and a baby, always chasing after one of them, never satisfied with having to use his own legs to move.

“You’re back,” Andrew says.

“I said I would be.” Neil walks over to him and moves to set Sir on the island, notices the array of weaponry atop it, and puts Sir on the floor instead. Sir mews in indignation, but Neil ignores him. “I fixed it. Everything is fine.”

“With you, fine is a loaded term.”

The smile Neil replies with is brittle.

“I’m alive and still run this business without outside influence,” he says. “It’s fine.”

“What did you give him?”

“Forty percent.”

“Forty percent is not without outside influence.”

“I don’t care,” Neil says. “I’m alive. You’re alive. He’s not going to come after Kevin or Jean. It’s fine. I had to fix this eventually, and this creates fewer problems than killing him outright.”

He reaches for Andrew’s shoulders, waiting for Andrew’s nod before gripping them.

“It’s okay,” Neil says. “Look. I’m not even hurt.”

He’s not. He’s wearing a suit, even, though it’s a little rumpled with wear.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you before I left. I knew you’d want to come, and I thought it’d be easier to swallow if I didn’t bring a hitman with me.”

Still. Andrew could’ve tailed him. Watched his back. Something. Ichirou isn’t exactly Honest Abe Lincoln. He could’ve killed Neil on the spot.

“And I’m sorry I let this drag on for so long. I knew after you didn’t kill me, and after Lola and Romero didn’t, he’d come to collect.” Neil’s fingers press into Andrew’s shoulders. “Look at me. He didn’t touch me. I'm—”

“Do not say you’re fine.”

“I’m okay,” Neil amends. “He likes it better this way. He can focus on his business while getting a cut of mine without wasting any of his own time or resources. It’s win-win.”

“It’s win-lose,” Andrew says. “You wanted to cut the puppet strings.”

“I’d rather be alive than completely autonomous,” Neil says, which is the kind of martyring Andrew has come to expect from him. “Look. We don’t have to worry about the Moriyamas anymore. You can focus on killing every rapist on the eastern seaboard, and I can focus on scamming rich people.”

Andrew pulls out of Neil’s grip and starts putting his weapons away. He locks the case, shoves it under his bed, and takes his cigarettes out to the balcony. After a moment, Neil follows him, patting King on the butt to get her off his chair.

Andrew feels strung out. He was raring for a fight. He thought he’d be driving through the night and then spending the morning cleaning blood out of his clothes. He thought he’d be driving Neil to the hospital, abandoning the car in a river, and buying fake passports to fly them to Austria.

He lights his cigarette one-handed; his other hand is still holding his preferred switchblade. He spins it between his fingers, careful to keep the blade away from his skin, and leans back while the adrenaline seeps out of his body.

King bats at Andrew’s leg. He puts the knife away and lets her climb into his lap, where she promptly curls up and closes her eyes. Such a lazy cat.

“The vet says it’s normal that she sleeps this much,” Neil says. “I guess her breed is known for not being particularly energetic.”

Sir comes out onto the balcony, too, makes himself comfortable on one of the cat beds they have to remember to bring in when it starts raining. He licks himself thoroughly, and absently Andrew wonders whether Neil remembered to brush Sir’s coat before he ran away to Ichirou.

“I was always going to come back.” Neil's voice is quiet, like he's letting Andrew in on a secret. “Or I knew you’d be coming after me. That’s why I left Find My Friends on.”

“They could have taken your phone.”

“Still,” Neil says. “It would’ve been a start.”

He reaches for Andrew’s cigarette. Andrew lets him take it; he doesn’t like smoking with the cats on his lap. He moves his hand to the back of King’s neck instead and rests it there. She doesn’t stir.

“How pissed are you?”

“I’m not pissed.”

“You almost blew my head off when I got home.”

“A protective measure,” Andrew says. “I thought you might be someone else.”

“You didn’t immediately put it down when you saw it was me.”

“Are you scared?” Andrew asks. He leans back in his chair and lets his head bob to the side to make eye contact with Neil. He still has multiple knives on him. Not as many as he used to at all times, not since he’s just been sitting at home all day. But he could probably do some serious damage right now, if provoked.

“No,” Neil says. “But I think you were.”

Andrew doesn’t give him the satisfaction of contesting this. Neil takes a single drag of Andrew’s cigarette, then flicks it out in front of them. One day they’ll probably set fire to a neighbor’s bushes or something. Or not—their new building is relatively secluded and definitely fireproof.

“I’m sorry,” Neil says. “But I fixed it. And we’re alive.”

“If you ever run away again,” Andrew starts, but he leaves he threat hanging in the air. Neil knows, probably.

“I wasn’t running away,” Neil says. At once it feels like the conversation is about something else, or at least something more. “I was running toward. And now I’m back.” He twists in his seat to look at Andrew properly, sticks his arm out like he’s trying to save Andrew from drowning. “Sorry I missed our usual pre-job ritual. I thought it’d be bad luck to do it in bad faith.”

“You are not superstitious.”

“Just unlucky.”

Sir bounces into Neil’s lap and scratches at his shirt. Neil drops a hand on Sir’s back, but his other one remains extended toward Andrew, palm up.

Andrew gives in. The adrenaline is gone; he just feels tired now. Tired and maybe—if he squints—relieved. He winds his fingers through Neil’s and sits back in the chair.

In his lap, King purrs.

Andrew hates the cats.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm kinda working on a sloooooow burn jerejean fic where they would get together like when they're already pro (it would start with that one [jerejean prompt fill](http://wilsherejack.tumblr.com/post/160888852538/jerejean-in-the-rain) i posted a few months ago). i feel like the slow burn romance thing is fun and i love writing jeremy pining but is there a market for this??? pls lmk
> 
> come say hi on [tumblr](http://wilsherejack.tumblr.com/)! please leave a comment if you enjoyed or spotted a typo


	4. Chapter 4

People think Andrew is the one with the temper.

Those people are wrong. If anything, Neil’s flight to West Virginia proved the opposite. Andrew keeps a tight leash around his control.

Neil is the one with a hair trigger.

They’re at a fundraiser. The Butcher always goes to fundraisers. It’s part of how he keeps his business supposedly above-board: donating to charity and being generally beloved. Since they moved to Baltimore proper, they've been invited to six fundraisers; this is the first one they've attended, mainly because Kevin said, “You need to donate some of this money if you want the cops to leave you alone.” 

Neil and Andrew are both in tailored tuxes. Kevin has brought Thea. Neil even ran a comb through his hair—and brushed it away from the NW brand on his face to remind everyone here of exactly who he is and those who know the truth behind it of exactly what they did to him.

Jean is the one to overhear it. He indicates the group of older men with his chin, and when Neil makes his way over to him, says, “They are talking about transferring cargo.”

“Isn’t that Dale Wellsley?” Neil says. “He runs a coffee business.” Neil buys the coffee himself from one of the cafes he funds. Andrew likes it.

“He is talking about coffee as if coffee can make noise,” Jean replies. “Your pet monster will not like it. I expect you are armed?”

“It’d be stupid if I weren’t.”

Neil doesn’t have the same response to human trafficking that Andrew does. He gets why it’s bad, but the connection between that and any emotional reaction doesn’t exist. He helps Andrew take down human traffickers because he likes Andrew and figures occasional good deeds will wipe out the red in his ledger, not out of the goodness of his heart. Can’t save everyone, he figures. Andrew is the one with the heart of gold. Neil is a mob boss who treats his favored gun as an extension of his arm.

“What does he want?” Andrew says when Neil gets back to him. A local politician is trying and failing to make conversation with Andrew. Neil smiles at her, all teeth, and whisks Andrew away.

“He says Vanguard Coffee Roasters might be working in human trafficking.”

“Shame,” Andrew says, locating the man in question while looking astonishingly like he’s just examining his fingernails. “I like their coffee.”

“We should probably get an admission of guilt,” Neil says. “Jean only overheard him speaking in code and had a hunch.”

“But you think he’s right.”

“Jean’s hunches usually are.”

Andrew’s eyes flick up to meet Neil’s. “You’ve never cared about this before. Are you becoming noble?”

“Maybe you’re just rubbing off on me.” Andrew's bristle in response is subtle; Neil knows him well enough to recognize it anyway. “You want to try to get him to cop to it, or should I?”

“He knows you,” Andrew says. “I will get his phone to Jean.”

They approach Wellesley together, Neil smiling his father’s smile and Andrew looking profoundly unbothered. Neil shakes Wellesley’s hand and barely notices Andrew picking Wellesley’s pocket when he leans forward.

“Dale, this is Andrew,” Neil says. “He’s my personal assistant.”

“Really?” Wellesley says, smiling a little too broadly. He holds a hand out, but Andrew doesn’t take it. “Rumor has it it’s a little more personal than that.”

“Rumors? About me?” Neil lets his own smile stretch to match. “Who's spreading those?” They're brave. That or they're stupid. 

“You hear things when you're a distributor,” Wellesley says. “You get to know a lot of people.”

“Not many people know much about me.”

“But everything there is to know about you is written on your face.” Wellesley's eyes are trained on Neil's cheek. “Did a tattoo artist do that for you?”

“My father, actually. He wanted me to remember who I belonged to.”

Wellesley's smile freezes on his face. At first, Neil thinks it might be pity; when Wellesley tilts his head to the side, he recognizes something else. Hunger, maybe. It confirms everything Jean said, and Wellesley hasn't even said anything yet.

Andrew must notice this, because he starts to drift toward Jean to deliver Wellesley's phone. Wellesley’s eyes follow him before returning to Neil.

“Well, if you two aren’t exclusive, can I interest you in something a little extracurricular?”

That was fast.

“I don’t need another personal assistant,” Neil says. “One is more than enough to handle.”

“I’m not offering an assistant.”

“I didn’t realize you moonlighted in talent management. Coffee not as lucrative as it used to be?”

“Not that kind of talent,” Wellesley replies. “And not that kind of management.”

“Tell me more,” Neil says.

Wellesley won’t. He’ll want to go a second location, have Neil patted down for recording devices or weapons. That’s when Andrew comes in. He’s great at getting around pat downs.

“I have a shipment of teenagers coming in this Sunday,” Wellesley says.

Neil blinks. “What?”  
Wellesley shows teeth again. “Don’t play dumb.”

“I just didn’t expect you to say it here.”

“Half the people here are my customers,” Wellesley says, shrugging. “You’re right. Coffee is not that lucrative these days. Everyone’s drinking those burnt beans from Starbucks.”

Andrew reappears at Neil’s shoulder. Behind Wellesley, Jean stoops to pick up a phone.

“Excuse me.” He taps someone standing nearby. “I think you dropped this.” The person shakes their head. Obviously, it’s not their phone. Jean keeps playing dumb.

Wellesley doesn’t even notice, too busy squinting at Neil. “Your father was never interested in my side business.”

“I’m not my father,” Neil says. “Andrew, Dale just offered me another employee. A young one.”

Andrew barely shifts. “I should meet them first for a preliminary interview.”

Neil wants to laugh. “Well? Can we arrange that?”

“Come right now,” Wellesley says. “Leave your boss here to schmooze, and meet me in the parking lot in ten minutes.”

Neil opens his mouth, but Andrew cuts him off. “Fifteen.”

Wellesley grins.

*

“Turn on Find My Friends,” Neil says.

They’re in the men’s room with the door locked, Neil pretending to adjust his tux while Andrew makes sure his weapons are ready to go. It’s his typical pre-kill ritual: check every knife, load every gun.

He pauses only to toss his phone toward Neil. There’s a giant information dump from Wellesley’s phone courtesy of Jean, information still unsorted. Neil switches the tracker on and looks up to hand it back to Andrew, only to notice that Andrew is much closer than he was a moment ago.

They always kiss before Andrew leaves to kill someone. It’s become part of Andrew’s ritual. Neil’s, too. They have to keep it short—they don’t know who will show up or when, or how long Wellesley will wait—but Neil knots a hand in Andrew’s hair anyway, pulling him as close as he can before he has to let go. Andrew is warm, tastes like the champagne Neil's been ignoring all night, kisses—as always—like both their lives are on the line.

“There is a backpack in the car,” Andrew says when he pulls away. He reaches up to brush Neil's hair back into place, then glances in the mirror to fix his own hair. “When you come, bring it with you. Don’t bring Jean or Kevin.”

Neil rolls his eyes. He wouldn't bring Jean or Kevin to the grocery store, let alone on a job. “What about Thea?”

Andrew doesn’t dignify that with a response.

*

Neil is supposed to wait twenty minutes, then follow them. He must check his watch a thousand times. Jean keeps trying to get him to stop fidgeting.

“I’m not fidgeting,” Neil says.

“This is his job,” Jean says. “He is better at it than you.”

Jean is right. Neil forces himself to sit still, take a sip of his ice water.

“If anyone asks, we left because I have an early flight tomorrow,” Neil says. “I already gave Kevin a check to donate.”

“Will you need me tonight?” Jean asks. He’s been watching a single guy all evening.

“I doubt it,” Neil says. “Wellesley seems like an idiot. Keep your phone on just in case.”

Jean nods, then stands up to get another drink or go talk to the guy or whatever it is he does. Neil sits by himself for another five minutes before checking his phone for Andrew’s location.

Andrew and Wellesley are driving toward the Baltimore port. Neil picks up their car from the valet, looks through the backpack (cleanup stuff mostly, extra bullets, some spare knives), undoes his bowtie, and slides on a pair of gloves.

Andrew’s phone’s tracker loses precision around the port. He must be in one of the warehouses; Neil looks around for an out-of-place shiny car and finds one, then picks the padlock to get into the warehouse.

It’s empty, which makes sense. It’s doubtful they’d be in a building locked from the outside.

He’s half looking for cigarette smoke. Andrew usually has a customary post-kill cigarette before he cleans up. Neil has always wondered if that’s not dangerous—don’t cigarette butts have DNA on them—but tonight he hopes for the scent to be a signal.

He tries the next warehouse, but it’s locked from the outside too, empty.

The third one is unlocked, but it’s empty except for massive boxes. Neil doesn’t trust it. He searches the inside with Andrew’s flashlight and finds a staircase leading into a well-lit basement, clicks the flashlight off, and creeps down the stairs as quietly as he can.

Wellesley isn’t there, but Andrew is. The situation looks so familiar that for a second, Neil thinks he’s disassociating. Andrew holding someone at gunpoint and being held at gunpoint. It’s like the day they met.

Neil can’t shoot. His gun isn’t cocked, and if he cocks it, the stranger might be startled into shooting Andrew. He just points it, and waits.

“Tell me about your boss,” the stranger is saying. “Name’s Nathaniel but he goes by Neil? Why’s that? He trying to show us he’s tougher than his daddy?”

Andrew just stands there, silent, on his guard. Absurdly, Neil thinks that he kind of looks like James Bond.

Then he sees the blood. The bottom half of Andrew’s face is covered in it; the collar of his tuxedo is soaked.

Neil’s heart skips. He needs to shoot. Andrew needs a doctor.

“But he doesn’t really want any part in this, right? This is all you.” The stranger is smiling. “You’re the one who killed off our competition. Thanks for that.”

Andrew’s finger is on the trigger. Neil thinks it must take immense control not to pull it. He thinks that he doesn't have anywhere near that level of control.

He takes another step down the stairs. It creaks, and Andrew jerks sharply to look at him.

Out of nowhere, another goon bangs something against the back of Andrew’s head. Andrew crumples, no resistance at all, and Neil’s vision stutters in and out.

The first stranger is turning toward Neil, opening his mouth and aiming his gun. Neil cocks the gun and pulls the trigger without waiting to hear what he has to say. The other goon, who was inspecting Andrew, looks up just in time for Neil to put a bullet between his eyes, too.

Wellesley. Where’s Wellesley? Fuck. He should’ve kept one of them alive for questioning. Fuck, fuck, fuck. Fine. It’s fine. He’ll just interrupt Jean. Jean will be annoyed, but—

Neil sprints down the rest of the stairs, crouches to check Andrew. The back of his head is bleeding; the goon used the butt of his gun to hit him. Neil is lucky and baffled that Andrew is still alive.

“Status?” Neil says. His voice comes out wrong.

“Hurts,” Andrew says dryly. The blood in collar is still bright red. His nose is broken, Neil thinks. He is definitely concussed. Hopefully not that badly.

“Where did Wellesley go?”

“Left,” Andrew says. “This was a trap.”

Another trap. That’s the second one this year. They’ve become too obvious, too fucking confident. Or Andrew has, anyway.

“I’m taking you to the hospital,” Neil says. “Let’s get out of here.”

“Clean up.”

“I can’t,” Neil says. “What am I supposed to do with the bodies? Dump them?”

“My blood.” How he manages to sound annoyed when half his consonants are fucked from his broken nose, Neil doesn’t know.

“Right,” Neil says, digging through the backpack. “Right. What—how do I stop—”

He finds a t-shirt, loosely wraps Andrew’s head in it.

“I’m going to sit you up for a second, okay?” Neil says. “Here—up against this.”

Andrew obediently leans up against the wall. Neil backs away from him, careful not to step in any of the splattered blood on the floor, and dumps the various cleaning products in the bag and dumps all of them on the floor. 

“Is it only here?” Neil asks.

“The gun.” Andrew’s eyes are starting to close.

“Andrew, stay awake.” Neil picks up the goon’s gun and pours bleach over it.

“Don’t mix ammonia with bleach, then.”

“What?”

Andrew coughs. Neil’s hands are shaking so hard he can barely cap the bleach.

“I’m going to help you up,” Neil says. His voice doesn’t sound like it usually does. He hauls the bag over his shoulder. “Andrew. Wake up.”

“I’m awake,” Andrew says. His head tilts up and then droops like his neck has been snapped, and he gazes up at Neil, motionless.

“I’m going to get you up the stairs. Put your arm around my shoulder.”

Andrew complies. He’s heavier than Neil expected, though Neil shouldn’t be surprised. He’s worked out with Andrew before. Andrew is solid muscle all the way through.

“Can you walk?”

“Mm,” Andrew says.

“Andrew.”

It doesn’t matter: Andrew’s feet are moving. Not quickly, not with much coordination, but they’re moving. Neil half-drags him toward the stairs, and then they get up those slowly and carefully, and then it’s only a short walk to the car.

The shiny car is gone. It doesn’t matter. Jean can send Neil Wellesley’s address.

*

Neil’s mother would be disappointed in him. Don’t look back, don’t slow down, don’t trust anyone. Be anyone but yourself. Never be anyone for too long. Run. Always run. Never stop running.

Maybe she was right. Neil’s been in one place for too long, and it’s the place he swore he’d never return to. He hasn’t been anyone other than himself in years. He runs, but he always comes back.  
And he trusts. He trusts Kevin and Jean, to a certain extent, and he trusts Andrew. Or maybe he just understands Andrew. Maybe they’re not the same thing.

No, Neil thinks, remembering Andrew’s gun aimed at his head back the week before they moved out of the suburbs. He didn't believe for a second that he was going to get shot. He definitely trusts Andrew.

Dale Wellesley lives in a mansion much more extravagant than one would expect for a coffee bean roaster. All that money, but he still has a shitty security system. An Xfinity sign on the lawn, obvious cameras around the side of the house. Neil still gets in by picking the lock. It’s even easier than the padlocks at the warehouses.

Wellesley is asleep in his bed, alone. That’s good. Neil hoped there would be no witnesses.

He can’t shoot Wellesley with the gun he has on him. He doesn’t want it to be traced back to the dead people at the warehouse. He has Andrew’s gun, too, but it’s the same type as his. It’s a last resort; if he has to, he’ll pick the bullet out of Wellesley’s brain himself.

Instead, he has knives. Well—he is the Butcher of Baltimore. Maybe it’s good that he’s finally going to start acting like it. Maybe people will finally understand that he is, after all, his father’s son. Even if he doesn’t carry a cleaver.

Wellesley has a gun on his nightstand. Neil tosses it across the room with a gloved hand and bends over Wellesley’s face.

“Good morning, Dale,” he says, very clearly.

Wellesley’s eyes fly open. Neil takes a sort of satisfaction in that. People like him don’t sleep soundly.

“Nathaniel? What are you doing here?”

Neil smiles. His father’s smile. His father’s name.

“I’m here to kill you, Dale,” he says.

“What—”

“Your partner is already dead. The police will receive an anonymous tip about your shipment in the morning. I thought about letting them deal with you. I’ve heard jail can be really hard for people who traffic children, but.” He presses one of Andrew’s knives against Dale’s cheek. “I know firsthand how corrupt the BPD can be, and I didn’t want you ever seeing the light of day again.”

“Is this about Andrew? He’s alive. We just wanted to scare him off. We offered him a cut, but—”

“It’s about Andrew,” Neil replies.

He cuts Wellesley’s throat first so he can’t scream. Not the carotid artery. He wants Wellesley to feel it.

*

“Hi,” Neil says, lowering the clipboard he stole to cover his ruined shirt.

Kevin is sitting in the chair next to Andrew’s bed, and when Neil comes in, he glances up, then down at Neil’s chest. “Amazing.”

“It’s done,” Neil says. He left the hospital as soon as he was sure Andrew would be fine. Andrew has his own room and is sitting up in bed, the TV tuned to something undoubtedly mindless. He barely looks at Neil.

“You have people to take care of these things for you, you know,” Kevin says. “I cut them checks every two weeks. You did not have to—”

“Thanks for staying with him,” Neil interrupts.

Kevin opens his mouth like he’s going to argue about this treatment, but he looks at an Andrew who is glaring back at him and changes his mind. “You owe me,” Kevin says instead. “He drove the doctors insane.”

“Give yourself a bonus,” Neil says. “You can go now.”

Kevin rolls his eyes at this dismissal, but he picks up his hoodie and leaves.

Neil locks the door behind him and settles in the chair next to Andrew’s bed before taking off his jacket. Post-adrenaline rush, the world looks a little dull. Andrew is the only bright spot in the room, the flush in his cheeks, the amber of his eyes. 

“Is there any hope for this shirt?” Neil asks him. “How am I supposed to get the blood out?”

Andrew glares at him. He has a giant bandage wrapped around his head and a cast on his nose, and he looks more tired than Neil has seen him, but otherwise he just looks like Andrew. Neil is relieved. He thought he might look paler than usual or corpse-like or something, but he just looks like himself. Himself in a bad mummy costume, maybe. 

“I’m not a dry cleaner.”

“Yeah, but if anyone knows,” Neil says, shrugging and resting his hand next to Andrew’s on Andrew’s bed. “It’s a good thing we didn’t rent the tuxes, right? I knew this would be cheaper long term. You want your knives back? I dunked them in ammonia.”

Andrew raises his arms to show IV drips and that endless array of crisscrossed scars that still makes Neil’s stomach turn. “Later.”

“Okay,” Neil says. He taps his fingers on the side of Andrew’s bed until Andrew’s own hand drops to stop him.

“What did you do to him?” Andrew says.

“I slit his throat.”

Andrew doesn’t look impressed.

“I’m good with a knife,” Neil adds.

“Then why are you covered in his blood?”

“Because I’m _very_ good with a knife.”

Andrew doesn’t smile, but Neil likes to think it’s a close thing. He stretches up toward Andrew, who cups a hand around the back of Neil’s neck to bring him closer.

“Yes or no?” Neil says. It might be a little complicated—Andrew has a cast on his nose, after all—but he doesn't care if Andrew doesn't.

“Was he dead when you left?” Andrew asks instead of answering.

“Very dead.”

“You won’t get caught?”

Neil actually does smile. Andrew’s face doesn’t change. “I won’t get caught.”

“Kevin is right,” Andrew says, which—why is he talking about Kevin? “For once. You pay people to—”

“Not this time,” Neil says. “This was personal.”

It takes Andrew a moment to reply. “Don’t say stupid things,” he says finally, and at last drags Neil the rest of the way forward to kiss him. The cast on his nose bumps against Neil’s cheek. He tastes like blood, or maybe that’s the inside of Neil’s own mouth, or a hallucination since it’s the only thing he’s smelled for hours. He’s going to need a shower. He’s going to need a change of clothes.

Not yet, though. For now, the door is locked and Andrew is going to be just fine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i was going to leave a cute note here but i forgot what it was so idk yall are great love you
> 
> come talk to me on [tumblr](http://wilsherejack.tumblr.com)! please leave a comment if you enjoyed or spotted a typo


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